Osteoporosis is a systemic bone disease characterized by bone mass loss and bone tissue structure weakened. Because of the bone mass loss and bone tissue structure weakened, patients with osteoporosis have a higher risk of fracture and often have other complications caused by fracture such as dysfunction, bone deformity, pain, and even death. It is known that bone density will decrease along with age and, for females, the bone density will decrease sharply after amenorrhea. Furthermore, other factors such as thyroid diseases, diabetes, steroid usage, smoking, alcoholism, or intestinal malabsorption may also promote the loss of calcium. Researchers have found that the primary pathological mechanism of decreasing bone density is when the activity of osteoclasts is higher than that of osteoblasts, calcium will move from bone to blood and thus, causes bone calcium loss.
Though appropriate supplement of calcium and exercise are helpful for maintaining bone density, most modern people lack exercise and the supplement of calcium alone cannot effectively decrease the rate of calcium loss or alleviate the pain caused by osteoporosis. Therefore, there is still a need for the art to have effective methods and medicaments for preventing or treating osteoporosis.
The present invention is the results of the research and development addressing the above problem. Inventors of the present invention found that the Streptococcus thermophilus TCI633 strain and/or its metabolites can effectively inhibit osteoclast activation and differentiation, and thus, can be used for preventing and/or treating osteoporosis.